512 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



terribly destructive to trees and to all vege- 

 tation. Now these ravages are becoming 

 limited in extent. 



Karl Ludwig von Littrow, Professor 

 of Astronomy, and Director of the Imperial 

 Observatory at Vienna, died at Venice, No- 

 vember 10th, in the sixty-seventh year of 

 his age. 



The mean distance of the sun, as de- 

 duced by the British Astronomer Royal, Sir 

 George Airy, from a comparison of the re- 

 sults obtained by the English telescopic ob- 

 servations of the transit of Venus in 1874, 

 is equal to 93,300,000 miles. But, as the 

 photographs of the transit are yet to be 

 worked up, this estimate must be regarded 

 as provisional only. 



Dr. H. C. Yarrow, of the Army Medical 

 Museum, Washington, is collecting materials 

 for a memoir on the burial-customs of the 

 North American Indians, both ancient and 

 modern, and earnestly solicits information 

 so as to enable him to treat the subject 

 with all possible fullness. Correspondents 

 are requested to state as exactly as may be 

 the name of the tribe concerning which they 

 give information, its locality, its manner of 

 burial, ancient and modern, its funereal and 

 other mortuary ceremonies, etc. Dr. Yar- 

 row's address is 1,747 F Street, N. W., 

 Washington. 



Douglas A. Spalding, author of many 

 suggestive papers on certain obscure ques- 

 tions in psychology which have appeared in 

 the Monthly, died on the 31st of October, in 

 the thirty-seventh year of his age. From a 

 notice in Nature we learn that Mr. Spalding 

 was in his early manhood a slater at Aber- 

 deen; in 1862, through the kindness of 

 Prof. Bain, he was allowed to attend free 

 of charge the classes in literature and phi- 

 losophy in the university. Later he went 

 to London, and tried to earn a livelihood by 

 teaching, at the same time studying law. 

 His paper on the instinctive movements of 

 young birds, read at the British-American 

 meeting of 1872, first brought him to the 

 notice of the world of science. 



At a conversazione lately held in Guy's 

 Hospital, London, a filter invented by a 

 Major Crease was exhibited. It reduced 

 strong tea and logwood infusion to clear, 

 tasteless water. The nature of the filtering 

 medium is at present a secret. 



A prize of $25,000 is offered by the gov- 

 ernment of India for the best machine or 

 process for preparing rhea or ramie-fibre ; 

 also a prize of $5,000 for the second best. 

 The conditions of winning the prize are 

 that the machine or process shall be capa- 

 ble of producing by animal, water, or steam 

 power, one ton of dressed fibre at a total 



cost not exceeding $75 at any port in India, 

 or $150 in England. The machines must 

 be in readiness at Saharanpar by August 

 15, 1879. 



A solution of bicarbonate of sodium 

 applied to burns promptly and permanently 

 relieves all pain. A laboratory assistant in 

 Philadelphia having severely burned the in- 

 side of the last phalanx of the thumb while 

 bending glass tubing, applied the solution 

 of bicarbonate of soda, and not only was 

 the pain allayed but the thumb could be at 

 once freely used without inconvenience. 



Munke quotes from the "Talmud" a 

 passage in which mention is made of iron 

 as a means of " protection from lightning 

 and thunder ;" and Wiedemann adds that 

 the ancient Egyptians appear to have used 

 gilded masts " for w aiding oft' the bad 

 weather coming from heaven." 



On board the British iron-clad ship Te- 

 meraire, besides the great engines for pro- 

 pulsion, there are no less than thirty-four 

 small engines for the following purposes : 

 two turning, two starting, four feed, two 

 circulating, two fan, two bilge, one capstan, 

 one steering, four pumping, four ash-lifters, 

 two hydraulic gear- workers, one torpedo 

 reservoir-charger, one to work the electric 

 machine' which lights the bridge, and four 

 others. 



Nearly all the salt used for domestic 

 purposes passes out with the sewage, and is 

 inseparable from it ; the proportion of salt 

 (chloride of sodium) found in water is there- 

 fore a pretty accurate measure of the degree 

 of contamination by sewage. Hence, says 

 Prof. Lattimore, of Rochester, " whenever 

 the proportion of salt in well-water rises 

 above a very {ew grains per gallon, con- 

 tamination by sewage or house-drainage 

 may be confidently asserted." 



A singularly interesting discovery has 

 been made by Reichenbach, with regard to 

 the embryo of the crawfish. He finds that 

 the " food-yelk " of the egg is not merely 

 absorbed by the embryonic cells by a pas- 

 sive process of diffusion, but that these lat- 

 ter actually devour the yelk-globules in pre- 

 cisely the same manner as an amoeba devours 

 diatoms or desmids. The cells throw out 

 pseudopod-like processes, and with these 

 envelop the yelk-globules and drag them 

 into their interior, where they undergo di- 

 gestion. 



The sermon of Henry Ward Bcecher on 

 the subject of future rewards and punish- 

 ments, concerning which there has been 

 such gross misrepresentation, is published 

 in full in the Christian Union (New York) 

 of December 26th. It is entitled "The 

 Background of Mystery." 



